God Save the Clown
by Servant of Fire
Summary: "Please, Mr. Holmes...Please...Save me from him. And the Collection...The Collection is yours." Magnussen begged on his knees, clinging to Sherlock's coat. Sherlock's face had never looked so made of stone. John stands there jaw hanging open stunned by the dark pit Sherlock stepped off into this time. Now he regrets the words they said. Sherlock's eyes say "It doesn't matter now".
1. Chapter 1

**Dinner Party~**

The color leeching from John's face drew the entire room's attention. It was not lost on them that some of history's two most infamous best friends were not on the best of speaking terms at this moment. Nonetheless, Sherlock was here. In Mary's new apartment. Embracing Mary as if he had known her for her entire life, even though they'd only met recently upon his resurrection.

"It's lovely of you to come, Sherlock." Mary led her new friend by the hand into the room eyes sparkling as champagne brilliance. John loved that Mary could be so open and friendly even to chief known sinners like Sherlock Holmes. He gripped his glass harder. Mary looked at John seeing the clench in his jaw. Sherlock was looking at Greg to avoid looking at John. He smiled from Greg to Molly who both seemed embarrassed for him (and perhaps of him).

"I invited him." Mary smiled. The elephants danced in her room, but she could care less. She'd grown to dearly love Sherlock from the little visits she made to him at tea time on John's behalf.

"You did. It was most kind of you, dear. Still, I'm afraid that I can't stay." Sherlock bit his lip. His eyes darted to John who expressed a tiny relieved sigh. John stood at attention with his jaw tilted up.

"Mm, why did you come at all then?" His voice was curt. Suppressed from the verge of waspishness only for the sake of the company they were in. Molly put her mouth behind her hand. Greg shifted on his feet. They all rather wished he hadn't. Even Mrs. Hudson, who'd normally have greeted him cheerfully, was silent.

"Ah, yes...One moment please..Mr. Livery, if you would bring my effects." Sherlock turned toward the door. A young man, possibly even a teenager, stepped up the stairs carrying a tiny forensic kit.

"What?" Greg was about to fly into a series of questions but Sherlock's eyes warned him. Sherlock and John had fallen out for the same reasons that Sherlock had fallen. Disbanding Moriarty's web, faking his death, and disappearing for 2 years on a peculiar hiatus.

Sherlock tilted his chin now assuming an icily professional air. His body language was stripped of all familiarity with them. Of course, for all of them save Mary had a few choice words for him when he returned and were still livid with his vague explanation. None more than John. This was the first time they were coming close to even a vague inkling of what his life was like now. They wouldn't give him the satisfaction of awe. Oddly enough, his body language wasn't asking for that this time. He had the honest air of a beaten dog.

"Mr. Livery is Director Holmes' intern and temporarily my assistant." Sherlock reached into his coat and produced a badge. An MI5 badge that read in new font "Detective Consulting" and had a proper photo ID and everything. John nearly dropped his teeth. He laughed behind his hand. Sherlock elected to ignore him, smiling ever so faintly in apology to Mary for ruining her party. She smiled back graceful and sure. She truly believed she could convince the others to forgive him eventually.

"We are under strict orders to make our intentions known to you, Ms. Morstan." Sherlock took Mary's hand and smiled.

"Which is why I waited until your invitation to do this. Director Holmes wishes, with your permission, to install private surveillance on the street below your new flat." Sherlock clenched his lips and closed his eyes when John scoffed.

"What, so he can spy on us?!" His voice was bitter. The others were about to intervene to keep him from flying off at Sherlock but Mary's cool voice interrupted the episode.

"Is this about Charles Magnussen's case, Sherlock?..." Her voice was quite grave.

"I'm afraid so, darling." Sherlock lifted his head. His face was sheet white now and his eyes shiny with fear and stress.

"What?" John demanded.

Mary looked apologetically at John like she wasn't sure what to say. Then, she looked at Sherlock.

"You have to run surveillance on me because I am friends with his clerk Janine, right?" She enunciated the words so that their conversation would explain itself and perhaps not trigger John's constant ire.

Sherlock swallowed. Then, he sighed. A sigh that made them wonder whether he or God was born first.

"Yes. She has been taken into protective custody. Temporarily, I assure you. Still, we must execute all precautions while this situation is processed." Sherlock nodded.

"Will she be alright?" Mary was getting anxious. Sherlock let a shuddering breath. Then, he turned to his assistant.

"Thomas, the system will have to be installed within the house so we can connect it to WiFi." Sherlock nodded.

"That will not jeopardize this flat's network will it, sir?" Thomas bit his lip.

"Not when I have installed the private networking system." Sherlock nodded.

" ...Aren't you going to answer the lady's question? We...This is...I mean this isn't a hostile situation is it, sir?" Thomas was shaking. _Shaking. _

Sherlock took the boy's shoulders.

"You'll be fine, son."

Sherlock Holmes had just consoled another human. He'd referred to him as _son _like they were going off to mortal combat.

Thomas nodded and turned to do as he was told. Sherlock turned exhaustedly to Mary.

"Okay, what the hell do you mean coming up in here like this and exposing Mary to potential danger? What in the Hell are you doing now?!" John snapped holding up a finger and setting his cup down.

Sherlock didn't answer him. John was puffing up about to pounce. Greg grabbed his arm before he could come at Sherlock. John saw the look on Greg's face and then looked back at his fiancee and former close friend.

"Have you been sleeping at all?" Mary's voice cracked almost teary. She cupped his chin in her hand. Sherlock smiled at her.

"Kind of you to ask." He shrugged. She nodded having taught him some on manners in the last few weeks and months since they'd met.

"Will Janine be alright, Sherlock?" Mary bit her lip leaning back from him.

"I don't know...I hate not knowing." Sherlock swallowed. Mary nodded. She turned to John then.

"This isn't his fault, just so you...You don't try to chin him or anything." Her face was gravely asking permission to be Sherlock's friend without John's hostility. Something she should not have to do.

John blinked, surprised by the exchange he had watched take place.

"I am sorry, Mary. I should have probably come at a different time." Sherlock bit his lip.

"You just thought...Maybe they should see it...See that you're different now, huh?" Mary smiled. Sherlock looked at her eyes abysmal within their sorrow. She breathed a slow breath, understanding.

Molly let a gasp and made a sound like she would try to speak to him. He looked to her for a split second. What was there to say?

"Now the 2,000 quid question, okay? Are _you_ going to be alright?" Mary did choke up then to the room's amazement. Sherlock laughed. A nervous, teeth-barred laugh.

"You're not going to like the answer to that question."

"I need to hear you say it. Even if I don't like it."

Sherlock nodded to say he understood. He nodded and looked over his shoulder at Thomas. Thomas was busy working on installing the system listening to a voice assistant bot and blissfully not paying attention to this conversation.

"I think this is the last that you and I will see of each other...For...for a while anyway. After, um...I don't know what will come after that. But, thank you...Thank you for your company in the recent weeks. I have enjoyed our conversations." Sherlock smiled.

"Don't talk like you're going to die, Sherlock." Mary bit her lip.

"You said you needed to hear the truth even if you didn't like it." Sherlock's face was grave now. He smiled at her one last time. John felt like he would slide into the floor, actually mortified and hating himself for it. He was about to speak, but Sherlock turned to Thomas and quietly installed the private network system.

"Alright, leave this switched on at all times. We can update you directly on your computer because of this device." Sherlock's tone was now clipped and even more robotic if that was possible. He motioned Thomas out the door.

"Just like that. You're going to say all of that and then just...Leave?!" John stomped after him a little bit. He paused at the door, shoulders tensing. Then he turned coldly on John_ face for the first time showing the faintest hint of anger but even then that was drowned in sorrow.

"What is it to you?" Sherlock's voice had always had a certain edge of venom to it when he wanted to be cold. This was at once vicious and broken.

John opened his mouth to say something else. Thomas was standing staring looking like he would puke or pass out.

"Mr. Livery, what did I say about catching flies with your mouth? Get on with it, we've got the Devil's work to do." Sherlock shot John one last cold look and slammed the door behind him.

They all stood in the echoing silence. Then John turned to Mary for an explanation. She was fanning herself.

"He's...He's really...He's really not to blame for all of this. If anyone, then it's really Mycroft Holmes' fault." Mary sat down with a hard thud and chewed her fingernails.


	2. Chapter 2

**Thinking Better, Feeling Fouler **

_"Mycroft had been spying on me to spy on John because he wanted to rat out the last possible lingering Moriarty thugs that would be left in Sherlock's dying wake. I, of course, didn't know any of this when John and I started dating. But Mycroft, observing me, found out that my friend Janine knew things that she was not supposed to know. Wild things...Wicked things. Things that belonged to her boss, the great media tycoon Charles Magnussen..." _

John had been amazed. The look in her eyes. They shot sparks of love and vengeance. The story she told had chilled John to the bone. It made him question himself and his morals. He was still angry with Sherlock, but now...Knowing only a fraction of his history incurred in the last 2 years, his heart was failing in him. He feared fouler would come.

That's why he let her talk him into it. As the party ended, she talked him into it softly. She said goodbye to Greg and Molly and Mrs. Hudson with soft smiles and promises of another get-together. She squeezed John's hand all the while, talking in code. Leading him softly down the road to Perdition the way Sherlock had gone.

"You have to follow me. I need to see him. See if he's alright. He can't just drop a bombshell like that and leave." Mary bit her lip.

"Why do you care so much, honestly?" John rubbed his face. Mary turned away from him. She tipped back what was left of a bottle of gin and shook her head at him.

"Because I have come to love the man who saved your life." Mary turned to look at him. She squared her jaw.

"What? You didn't know that? Bloody Mycroft." Mary tossed the bottle into the trash.

"Didn't know what?" John must have made a face when she had spoken. Her lips were curled a bit like a kitten with mischief. She giggled covering her mouth.

"Oh, no. That's too good. I know him better than you do now. How weird is that?" Mary snorted she was laughing so hard.

"Why don't you just enlighten me then? Sherlock Holmes_the liar who pretended to be dead for 2 years! _is somehow a saint now?" John couldn't hide the tremble in his voice. He didn't want to admit that he was worried about him. That it was scary the thought that he could die.

"That's his story to tell. Which is why I bugged his phone!" Mary smirked. She held up her phone's GPS. John blinked, confused. He followed her outside.

* * *

They hadn't expected it. To come upon a crime scene, a burning opera theater to be exact. They hadn't expected to find Thomas Livery outside manning several screens worth of equipment.

"Thomas! It's Mary from earlier today...Is he? Is he okay?" Mary ran to the boy whose face was the color of tobacco ash.

"Oi...Mr. Holmes wouldn't want you two here. Especially not you." Thomas pointed at John.

"I don't want to be here. This was the lady's idea." John bit his lip regretting the way he'd said that by the look on the kid's face.

"This isn't the time or the place for you and Holmes' marriage counseling, alright? We've got a city on its knees." Thomas shook a Sharpie at them as if to shoo them away.

"No, it's alright, Thomas. At least here they will be in the eye of the hurricane." Sherlock stepped out from behind all the TV equipment. His face was gray. He licked his lips.

"Tracking me now? Clever girl, you are." Sherlock smiled.

"Ugh...Why don't you two get married?" John rubbed his nose longing to punch Sherlock and hug him all at once which felt sincerely strange.

"This is a crime scene, Doctor Watson. Please train your conduct as such." It was almost laughable, Sherlock telling John how to behave at a crime scene. Except for the hurt tone with which he spoke.

"Why you...You complete sodding.."John began.

"Sherlock, I drug him along so you could tell him the truth. I know...I know I'm not supposed to be here but..."Mary took a shaky breath.

Sherlock sighed. Again, with that aching sigh that was so old as to make God seem junior.

"How can I tell him the truth if he doesn't want to hear it? Besides, most of it is tied up in enough red tape to mummy wrap me." Sherlock shook his head. He glared at John then.

"Once I held the highest respect for you. That's the only reason why you can stay now and see what you will." Sherlock turned on his heel and marched back to the theater. He had several forensic zones taped off. John spluttered, taken aback. Sherlock had _respected _him?!

John made a small note to be a bit nicer. Sherlock's face, when he spoke, had looked so languid. It was fearful. John was starting to feel the creeping steps of remorse. Something that made him feel bitter, but it also snapped him back to reality.

Amid the forensic zone, was none other than Charles Magnussen. John recognized him from his chat show. He felt his blood go cold to see him after Mary's version of events.

"Mr. Holmes...Mr. Holmes...I_I can explain." Magnussen crawled forward. Sherlock had been reaching to move evidence with gloves and tools. His head swiveled around to look at Magnussen at his feet.

"Any explanation you give will be evidence against you...You know this." Sherlock grit his teeth. His tone sent the hair standing up on the back of John's neck.

"Please, Mr. Holmes...Please...Save me from him. And the Collection...The Collection is yours." Magnussen begged on his knees, clinging to Sherlock's coat. Sherlock's face had never looked so made of stone. John stands there jaw hanging open stunned by the dark pit Sherlock stepped off into this time. Now he regrets the words they'd said between them. It seemed petty now in the wake of the fact that this man who was allegedly a crimelord that even Moriarty would have feared was falling to pieces like this.

Sherlock's eyes found John's. The look on his face was frozen as if to say _It doesn't matter now. _John couldn't tell if that meant the bridge to saving civility between them had collapsed or not.

Sherlock turned back to Magnussen who was sobbing into his coattails.

"I will need you to compose yourself and stand. We may even now be under his surveillance." Sherlock shook his head, annoyed.

"Sorry, who?" John stood at attention now.

"There is a name no one ever says...Not even the son of him." Sherlock bit his lip.

"Wait...What...You-You mean?"

"Yes, John. The Moriarty we knew had a father. The Professor."


	3. Chapter 3

**Shaky Steps**

Sherlock and Magnussen were locked in each other's gaze. It was as if their mind was a spider's web weaving together. Magnussen let out a little pleading chirp. They understood what had been said.

John stood with his jaw hanging open before Sherlock looked up. He was suddenly barking orders. John's eyes went wide when he realized that Sherlock was the senior officer at this scene.

"Detain him for questioning. He's burned his prints so take his blood and hair samples. Also, be thorough, I want a scrap of fabric for chemical testing. We must corroborate Magnussen's wardrobe with the Theater clowns." Sherlock shook his head, face showing disgust. No one questioned him here as they did at New Scotland Yard. Sherlock was someone else entirely here. Someone respected and almost...feared.

Sherlock nodded as Magnussen was hauled away in cuffs. Then, he called for Thomas.

"I want you to start tagging everything we've labeled here with RFID. Also, with the older coin-like cattle tags, thank you, Mr. Livery." Sherlock slipped the evidence gloves off his hands. Thomas swallowed.

"You...You want them to track us, sir?" Thomas was chewing his lip.

"You're observant. A quality I can begin to work with. God, yes, it will make our job so much easier. Some of his ambitious underlings will come to destroy the evidence to make him proud. He'll pick them off one by one. It's like cherry gleaning." Sherlock smiled. Thomas nodded and went to do as he was told.

Sherlock turned to Mary and John. His face was more somber then.

"Ms. Morstan, I would like to escort you back home. It isn't that I don't trust your companion to keep you safe. Quite the opposite, I am expecting him to keep you safe and that would put him at a massive amount of risk as well." Sherlock nodded.

"How are you more capable of keeping her safe than I am?" John could kick himself. Here he was going to try to make himself nicer. Sherlock tilted his head. Then, he produced a semi-automatic rifle in a strap under his coat.

"Doctor Watson, I am an inducted officer of the British Secret Services. Your protection is my necessary obligation. Please don't take it as a personal offense." Sherlock took a deep breath. John shook his head. His mouth popped open.

"Alright, could you please stop with all the formality? Listen...I...I'm sorry. I've been an ass, I know." John closed his mouth surprising even himself. Mary grinned. Sherlock looked touched by this comment, but also greatly surprised. He lowered his coat hiding the rifle underneath it again.

"As you wish, John." Sherlock's eyes said there was still a grave sense of hurt that ran between them. That he hadn't explained his actions because he couldn't. Seeing that now, John sort of wanted to fall to his knees as Magnussen had and beg for his forgiveness. Which was strange, because he was the one who was owed an apology.

"I will let you escort us, Sherlock. On the condition that we go somewhere for the meal that you didn't eat with us and you explain what you can to John about your time away. What you told me..." Mary nodded. Sherlock's teeth were visibly barred. He was honestly afraid to talk about it. John felt his stomach twist in a knot.

"I can't say no to you, darling." Sherlock smiled and nodded that she should lead the way.


	4. Chapter 4

**Falling Like Jupiter**

It was strange to watch her discover him. John imagined that he had that look on his face the day that they first met. If not for how bitter he felt now, he would be that way again.

Sherlock had undergone metamorphosis. It was evident by the way he carried himself like an officer and not a newly-minted phenomenon. It was the way he ordered tea and only tea there in the evening. He sat with his eyes trained to the exits even though they were sitting at an outdoor cafe under the stars. He was different in all the ways he was the same. No longer arrogant, but perhaps only because he had completely achieved his rise in the ranks. Perhaps he was confident because he did not need to prove himself anymore.

"Sherlock, are you well?" Mary asked it with nerves in her voice. Sherlock smiled over the porcelain cup his tea had come in.

"I'll be fine, dear. We shouldn't stay here too long..."His eyes scanned the streets.

"Why is that?" John tilted his chin. Sherlock turned to look at him. He drew a shaking breath. Mary nodded.

"It's alright. You should tell him." Mary smiled. Sherlock nodded never breaking eye contact with John.

"Because I'm being watched by the King and his men." Sherlock took another sip of his tea and then his eyes swept the street again. He was feral now. John saw it in his eyes. An element of wildness that had not existed in the younger Sherlock. The one who lived with him in harmony.

"So, if you were under surveillance why did you insist on escorting us? Aren't you a danger to us?" John's voice came out far more harsh than he'd meant for it to. Sherlock put his face in his hands and let a soft sigh.

"Do we have to do this now?" Sherlock looked at Mary desperate for release. She nodded.

"If it doesn't get done now, it won't get done. If you die, I don't want you dying with the idea that he hated you. He's fooled himself into thinking that he does_but he doesn't. I've got him figured." Mary smiled. Sherlock looked at her in wonder. John cleared his throat and shifted drawing Sherlock's eyes again. They were so broken now that John almost let out a cry.

"There isn't any kind way to say it. If I had not faked my death that day, then Moriarty the younger's people would have blown your brains out. There were trained snipers at three key locations that day, John." Sherlock shook his head and looked at the street to avoid looking at John's face.

John sat blinking. He blinked 9 times or so. Even the fairy lights that wrapped this cafe's porch were too heavy for his eyes. Sherlock...died for him?!

"You lied to me to save me?" John sounded offended. He was. Sherlock did not get to be the hero after lying for so long. Only he was. John knew that he was going to fall into this knowledge as if Jupiter was swept from Heaven.

Sherlock let another exasperated sigh. They were becoming almost as common as his natural breathing. John felt a twinge of worry. He'd not asked for it so it peeved him a bit.

"Yes. And two others. Lestrade and Mrs. Hudson. Though I suppose it doesn't matter now. None of it does." Sherlock rolled his hand into a fist and pressed it to his lips. John stared at him. He was looking for words to chide him, snap at him, rave at him like he'd been wont to do. In that instance, he wanted to embrace him. He couldn't, but he wanted to.

"I'd say it does matter. Had you failed to execute your plan, I'd be shy a fiance." Mary took Sherlock's hand. Sherlock laughed. A broken laugh. Then, he nodded.

"The rest cannot be shared in great detail. It was...Savagery to say the least. I did not as you so eloquently put it "go off to play games" or whatever crock of horse shite you said. I went off to die a bloody, ragged death. I did it for you, for your direct security in all of this, if I'm to be frank. I'm not telling you that to earn merits or draw you back into the nightmare that is my life. I'm telling you because she asked me to and I simply cannot resist any request she makes_She is the only soul that is kind to me." Sherlock stood up and tapped the rifle. John was staring at him now. He felt all the blood rush to his heels at the indignant, cracked version of his own story_ the mention of his sacrificial death intent.

"If you are finished eating, dear, I think we have been in this place a sight too long." Sherlock smiled at Mary then looked over his shoulder again face narrowing into a sneer of mistrust at the street view. Mary nodded and stood up. Her face belied a sense of hope.

"Agreed. Come on, John." Mary had to all but drag John back to the apartment.

* * *

Sherlock lingered at the door a moment looking up into the light of a home. He'd had a home once. Once upon a time, on Baker Street. With how livid everyone was on his return, he had not moved there again. No one, not even Mary, knew where he lived now, though Mary thought it might be somewhere near the Thames House for convenience.

"You...you could come in for a minute." Mary smiled out the door. Sherlock was staring with such longing at the house. John even paused on the stairs watching the sorrow light across his face. He wanted to say that he didn't mind. He wanted to beg him to stay. It just wouldn't come out that way. Sherlock's eyes floated to John who cleared his throat. He misunderstood and thought it was John's way of shooing him off.

"Are you happy here?" Sherlock nodded at the apartment. Mary's eyes lit up.

"Oh, yeah. I've always dreamed of having one like this one. I know that sounds a bit silly. It's just...The skylights." She smiled. Sherlock smiled at her. It was the first stroke of gentleness to touch his face in a while.

"The Professor. He won't stop until Magnussen and I are dead. It will be quite the spectacle. The crime scene you came to was that of a theater ransacked for all its special effects. He chose it because it was famous for its special effects department. We think they may disguise themselves in operatic uniforms to do their dispatch. The Professor_he loves his dramatic arts." Sherlock looked at the ground.

"I-I'm not supposed to tell you that. So, if you would..."Sherlock's eyes floated from Mary to John.

"We...We will." Mary smiled.

"Mary?" Sherlock sounded nervous now.

"Mm?"

"Might not wanna track me anymore? It could get you in trouble." Sherlock's wry smile elicited a shaky laugh from Mary.

"I'm sorry." Mary bit her thumb with a guilty smile.

"Don't be...It was good to see you." Sherlock smiled. He nodded to John.

"You've done well for yourself. I'm happy for you." He took two steps back. John took a deep breath. He wanted to say something.

"I wish you both the best. I mean it with the utmost sincerity. I wish you both a long and peaceful life. Goodnight." With that, he turned to go.

"Well?" Mary folded her arms.

"Well, what?" John looked at her a bit incredulous for an instant.

"Oh, for God's sakes, John. Go and make things right with him now or you will regret it for the rest of your life!" Mary jabbed a finger in the direction of the man departed. John drew a shaky breath. Then, he kissed Mary and charged into the night after Sherlock.


	5. Chapter 5

**Thermoplyae**

John's steps failed beneath him after the fourth block. He was in the dark. The wind swept leaves and scraps of paper over the street. Their brushstroke_the strings behind the symposium of pigeons above. It was all the orchestra. The breath of life. John felt his pulse in his ears. He had forgotten this harmony. He'd wanted it for years and forsaken it at its first appearance.

A lighter made a grenade-clink in the corner. A soft flame and the plumes of smoke were the only changing element in this scene. The plumes were the brushstrokes of ghosts. They wrapped a halo around the man's face. The man's gaunt face that appeared behind his tiny fire.

John knew him once. The man leaning against the wall of an abandoned London apartment complex, smoking here in seclusion to avoid the Bobbies. This most peculiar man had once been his life's greatest event. Sherlock's life itself had been a benediction. John forgot that. John had tread the grapes of wrath. He had drunk their bitter wine. Now he didn't know himself anymore. Nor did he know this man.

Sherlock said nothing. He smoked in silence. It was his silence that spoke to John. It cut deeper than if he'd slid a razor across his face. It bled as if he'd slashed at his wrists. John felt weak with that blood loss, with those eyes that pierced into him like gunmetal. Bullets they were boring jagged holes in him. He felt the heat of firefight and vengeance all at once.

"I take it that she has gone to bed?" Sherlock tilted his head as his cigarette died. Now they were robed in the darkness. John felt naked here. Sherlock had been born in the dark. It swaddled him and gave him back a sense of element.

Sherlock paced John in a tight circle.

"I can almost feel the heat roll off of you. Pernicious little moppet you are. It was inviting once but I suppose it's like one of those electric fly traps. Drawing and then fatal." Sherlock dropped the strap, the machine gun. He dropped his coat and put up his fists. John saw that even in the dark.

"Might as well have it out then. I'll warn you, though, It's not good for you to keep secrets from the woman who will be your wife. I've solved enough adulteries turned to murders to have drawn an informed conclusion. " Sherlock's voice purred with all the passive aggression John had thrown his way in the last few weeks.

"That isn't what I came for." John's voice cracked in his ears.

Sherlock scoffed. Fabric rustled as he seized his coat off the pavement. He lifted his rifle again, strapping it across his chest in plain sight.

"Why the hell did you come, then, John?" Sherlock's words were biting.

"She asked me to." John spat through grit teeth. He didn't want to spit it out that way. He could test the patience of God!

"Aha! Well, she isn't here to know or care how it goes. Say what you meant to say, or get the Hell away from me." Sherlock stepped past John. He collapsed exhaustedly in the corner and lit another cigarette. His face glowered in that fallen light. Benediction had become the Devil.

"Why are we doing this?" John rolled his hands into fists. Sherlock chuckled darkly.

"Why don't you tell me? I was quite peacefully minding my own business." Sherlock rubbed his nose annoyed with his presence.

"When the Hell do you ever do that?!" John jabbed a finger at him. Sherlock leaned against the wall puffing smoke as a fish does its bubbles. He growled out an anxious sigh of irritation. Well and truly, he seemed a dragon, confined on the ground.

"You are a rather self-contradicting little whining moppet, aren't you? Was it not you who said that all I ever do is keep to my selfish pretensions? That I was a machine?" Sherlock breathed into the cigarette blowing sparks along the alley. Some of them caught in newspapers that brightly burned for a moment illuminating them. In that light, John saw Sherlock had a new busted lip. He hadn't done that to him, so who had?

"Are you okay? You look like someone drove over your face?" John was surprised by how tender his voice had been unbidden. Sherlock burst into obnoxious laughter. The papers burned out leaving only the darkness and Sherlock's demoniac outburst.

"I told you not more than two hours ago that I was going to die a grotesque death. Does a beating surprise you? Oh, never mind, how stupid of me. It is your Hippocratic oath that compels you." Sherlock's snarling voice scared John then. Frightened him because he was serious. Because he could die. Die for real. Die with this kind of animosity between them. John gasped. Then, to the surprise of them both, he burst into tears.

Sherlock lit his lighter again to see. He looked at him, completely perplexed. John hit his knees and crawled to sit beside him. He buried his face in his knees and sobbed.

"Did I insult your profession that greatly, Doctor Watson?" Sherlock's voice was a bit more uncertain now as he let the flame go out. He sat there smoking in silence deciding it best not to disturb John lest he delighted in a beating.

"I don't...I don't hate you, you know that?" John sat up after a long moment. He swallowed trying to compose himself.

"You don't have to pretend to care for me on her behalf. I don't blame you at all for your low opinions of me. I am the Devil." Sherlock snuffed the dying cigarette and sighed.

"It may surprise you that I'm not pretending. That's precisely why it makes me so damn furious with you..."

"What?" Sherlock's voice was weak. He shifted uncomfortably, laying his face on his rifle's butt and closing his eyes. John could feel him praying for his survival in the quiet of his thoughts. He'd been there before. Somewhere, they'd all been to Afghanistan. They two had walked the lonely path that led to Samarra.

"I stay so rabid angry with you, you complete sod, _because_ I love you." John was crying all over again.

"John?" Sherlock's voice was vulnerable now. Almost timid. It was weird to hear in the same voice of the one who once had demigod-like confidence.

John scrambled to lean over him before he could move. He undid the rifle's strap and tossed it a meter or so away. Then, he hauled Sherlock into his embrace with enough ferocity to make the younger man cry out softly in pain.

"I do. I love you. Massively. It pisses me the hell off that you are such an arrogant, ridiculous, blathering moron you go running off God knows where and let God knows what be done to you and then come back only to claim you're gonna die again. What _the Hell, _Sherlock?!" John gripped Sherlock's shoulders hard, digging his fingernails into them.

Sherlock's arms slid gently up John's shoulders. He laid his face on his shoulder and gasped. It was a quiet, desperate gasp. Despair and pain too heavy to draw tears from him. Then, his whole body was trembling. Only now did John realize that Sherlock was under an extreme amount of stress. He was trembling because his muscles were so tensed they were starting to fatigue all over.

John placed his hand heavily in Sherlock's hair. Sherlock leaned against him, overcome with silence now. He didn't speak again. He scarcely breathed. He just lay there and allowed himself to be held and loosely held John back. After a long time, John somewhat wondered if Sherlock had ever been hugged before?

After another long moment, when John had just begun to wonder if Sherlock Holmes had died in his arms, Sherlock let a shaky breath.

"I am not exaggerating it, John. My murder has been planned in a rather theatrical manner." Sherlock leaned back_ face a thousand shades of apologetic.

"Okay, so how are we gonna stop it, genius?"

"Sorry, we?"

"You're the senior officer for your unit. Make me one of the interns or something. I can't just sit around at dinner parties while you're probably gonna die."

John smiled. Sherlock licked his lips, concerned.

"I swear if you are running the math..."John held up a hand.

"Alright...No, alright. You're owed some involvement if you can't have an explanation. I concede to the fact that I have wronged you somehow, even if I don't understand how I did. I-I'm sorry, John." Sherlock stood up and helped him stand. Then, he rapidly restored his rifle to his shoulder and scanned the street for signs of his lurking tormentor. It made John's blood go cold to think, but at least one small victory had been won today. They had reconciled. Imagine their friend's faces when they learned it as if the battle of Thermopylae had been repeated.


	6. Chapter 6

**Clowns and Puppets: **

**A/N1 Somehow some of the pages had been deleted from this story, or never posted correctly. So, this is a new chapter 6.**

_**A/N2 Sherlock's age and character in this chapter had been based directly on the Arthur Conan-Doyle version of him. If the show had gone by ACD canon, Sherlock would have been 28 in the first episode, so we've just counted the years from that to this AU Series 3. **_

_**P.S. Mycroft is 7 years older than Sherlock in the ACD canon so in this story, he is 40 and Sherlock is 33. **_

As Sherlock rose to stand, his mobiles started ringing. Only now did John realize he had so many. Exasperated, with a heavy sigh that made John's bones ache with its exhaustion, he answered an earpiece.

"Yeah?" He spoke into a mic clipped to his sleeve. John saw the little color that remained in his cheek blanched. His face was a newspaper, his eyes spelled dark headlines.

"I'm on my way. Don't touch him. No, Livery_Listen. He's hysteric because of the substance they've treated him with. Talk to him. Say something. Say anything. Get paramedics on standby but don't touch him." Sherlock switched a button on his earpiece. He studied John then.

"I..I need a physician at the scene..."Sherlock's eyes were so heavy. Now, without anger's blinders, John was truly frightened for his friend. He nodded.

"Let me text Mary...Then, we'll be off." John reached into his pocket and wrote simply.

_You were right. I'll be home late. _John _

Sherlock smirked when he heard the text notification. John held up the text, nodding, accepting it as truth.

_I knew it._M. _

Sherlock and John walked in silence. Thomas' eyes were wide when he saw that John was with Sherlock walking close as friends do. Sherlock nodded.

"Mr. Livery, show Doctor Watson to the patient." Sherlock nodded that the boy should lead the way.

"This ain't gonna turn into another circus is it, Mr. Holmes?" Thomas gave John a grim look.

"I think we've more of that to worry about that inside than we do from the good doctor." Sherlock nodded.

John's stomach shot to his nose when he saw the frightened would-be murder victim. He was hanging from the rafters of a public library's auditorium. His face was painted 9 shades of a clown. Or it had been except that tears ran his makeup. He shivered and convulsed, clown costume soaked in some pinkish liquid.

"You must be Andrew Nolety. That is if your custom dimension clown shoes, men's size 15, smudged with the river silt of the missing Andrew Nolety's private drive are to indicate you as the man I've been looking for." Sherlock's voice was a thunderclap into the frightened room. John's eyes went wide amazed by his friend's calm in this horrid situation.

Sherlock slid like a shadow under the frantic man. He slid gloves from a nearby open first aid kit onto his hands and produced a blacklight from a lanyard around his neck.

"Mr. Nolety, my name is Sherlock Holmes. I am a private investigative consultant for the British Secret Services. I would like you to please remain as calm as is possible while you are under the effects of this substance. I have brought a doctor, sir. I have authorized him to attend you as soon as my lads can take you safely down." Sherlock met the frightened man's gaze. He smiled. It was strange to see someone smile in this situation. The man sobbed.

"H-How did...H-how did you know my shoe size?!" He sobbed, lips popping open-closed- open- closed like a fish on the sand. If this was an NSY crime scene, someone would have reprimanded Sherlock for scaring a victim. This was not an NSY crime scene. This was Sherlock's crime scene. John was surprised at this moment by how little credit he had been given in the past. Perhaps he was so antagonistic before because he was not allowed to use his expertise and personality the way he knew to for best results.

"I didn't know it, Mr. Nolety. I saw it. It is a trained science the British government has held in its employ for the better part of 20 years." Sherlock was 33. John's jaw dropped realizing that Sherlock had been called on by the government since he was a 13-year-old boy.

"Sc-science...You..you are a scientist?" The man's eyes followed Sherlock as if he was the last star in a fallen sky. Sherlock was moving around him, carefully shining the light on everything he saw and he saw everything. It was forensics at light speeds. The others were watching, breath bated. Sherlock was deducing and comforting this man at the same time. Something they had never seen him do before. Something he must have picked up in Hell. That's where he'd been the last 2 years. John only now realized. It made him even more sorry for the way he'd been acting earlier.

"I am naturally observant, yes. It is through observation and logic that I can use science. You cannot personify science, can you? So, I am not a scientist in the sense that I wear the funny white coat and run the tests and make suppositions about the future. I am a science apologist. A chemist and a detective. That's what most qualifies me to save you, Andrew. A pity you ran when he threatened you. We may have avoided this discomfort." Sherlock's voice purred like an English teacher. His work was done. He nodded to Thomas.

"Alright, we can begin the victim's extraction process. He's been coated in the spit of a rare species of a pit viper. It is fateful if injected. Contact on the skin is a potent hallucinogenic. The exposure to its fumes itself is what makes him hysterical." Sherlock turned to Thomas who was strapping on a mask. He nodded to his fellow interns to help him start cutting Andrew down and easing him to the ground.

"I've been...They bled the snakes on me? Am I going to die?" Andrew sobbed. Sherlock tapped his feet.

"Andrew, please compose yourself. Your distress will prolong your suffering. Now, we will know the full extent of your condition once my colleague, Doctor Watson, is allowed to examine you. We must get you down first." Sherlock drew the man's eyes. John swallowed, making a small note that Sherlock was pointedly calling him his _colleague _as if he was asking for permission to call him "friend" again.

_"_Sherlock...Sherlock Holmes. Wait...Oh, God! You are the-THE Sherlock Holmes?! The papers...Papers said you were the one what stopped the other one. The one that stole the crown or some such..." Andrew started chuckling.

"That's right..."Sherlock's voice was jarringly humble as if he didn't want to talk about that. John realized in a fractured second that his friend had changed. Immensely. It was scary. What had been done to him to so rapidly change him in only 2 years?

They eased the frightened man into John's grasp. He had been beaten, scratched, but he was mostly unhurt. The poison had saturated his costume. Once they cut it off him his symptoms started to ease. Only, he was a bit delirious, eyes watching Sherlock as if he'd found an avenging angel. John gave him emergency care until the ambulances got here.

Greg responded to the call with them. His eyes were wide when he saw Sherlock and John standing together. Greg bit his lip. He was still angry with Sherlock himself, but he did want to know what was up with him. He marched over to him and nodded.

"Right, so...So, whose crime scene is this? Who do I need to report to_to help out?" Greg looked over his shoulder expecting Mycroft or someone.

Sherlock blinked. Then, he held up his badge again.

"I am the commanding officer here." He stated it robotically.

Greg laughed. A hoarse, amazed laugh.

"You?" Greg licked his lips. Sherlock didn't snark back or backtalk or act like an immature arrogant jerk as he would have long ago. Now he merely blinked at him, as if he couldn't find enough data to compute his presence. Then, he nodded.

"Yes." He stated it simply, sadly. Greg's anger somewhat abated. He blinked and his face turned gray.

"Inspector Holmes, sir, is it alright to have police here?" A bashful woman eyed Greg suspiciously.

"No, not generally. Don't allow anymore. This one is with me, though. It...We were colleagues once." Sherlock nodded to her. Greg and John exchanged sad glances at words like "colleague" and "once". Thomas Livery interrupted the reconciling conversation that might have happened... He was shaking.

"Mister...Mister Holmes. That's the third person we've found in two nights with weird poisons on them...What in Hell is happening?" Thomas was shaking he was so upset.

"Listen to me. Meet my eyes. You must compose yourself or what I am telling you will not register." Sherlock seized the boy's arms. He nodded.

"I will leave you no illusions. Professor Moriarty is closing his noose around us. He...He is leaving us samples of his best colognes as he calls them.I've sampled them before. That is why I am mostly unaffected. He is building our immunity to his work so that his more creative murders will be harder to solve. Especially for you. As my brother's illegitimate son, you are most likely to have a backdoor elevation to the directorate when Mycroft and I are dead. Which may be quite soon. Thomas. Look at me, son." Sherlock tilted his nephew's chin. John and Greg were left reeling to realize that this boy was Mycroft Holmes' teenage son.

"Professor Moriarty desires personal vengeance against my brother. He is the reason for the creation and sabotage of Moriarty the Younger. First, it will be my creative murder. Then, he will aim for yours. Now, mine is a sacrifice. It is a strategy. It is something that I can play within my cards_I can help him to plan it before he executes it by how I play the game. I can solve all of the possible variables. I will use it to blood you. Blood you, Thomas. To train you as my succeeding officer as the next and only consulting detective." Sherlock nodded. Greg and John were feeling faint listening to this exchange.

"What? You expect me?! Sherlock, you can't be serious?!"The boy was frantic. Sherlock took the boy by the face.

"Thomas...Breathe." Sherlock nodded eyes burning in his face a supernova. Thomas nodded and drew a shaky breath. Then, he shook his head, nearly crying.

"I don't want you to die, uncle..." Thomas put his arms around Sherlock now. Sherlock, to their surprise, let him. He held him close.

"We have to take that chance. It will be alright. You'll be ready when my time comes." Sherlock leaned back. The boy bit his lip trying to keep his composure.

"I want you to go stay at the old Sherrinford place for two days. So that I can draw him out. This one, tonight? The colors of a fingerpainting. He's getting impatient with me. If you think that his son was impetuous, then you've not met the Professor." Sherlock nodded sure of himself as only he could be.

Thomas gave a little shuddering breath. Then, he nodded and stepped back, heading for the car assigned to him by his hawklike father.

"Thomas?" Sherlock called after the boy. He turned.

"Send my love to my sister." Sherlock smiled. Thomas laughed.

"If she will even hear me." The boy nodded and sniffed.

"Go now, child. Before someone sees us." Sherlock nodded. The boy fled the scene.

Sherlock turned to look at his former friends. They were staring at him amazed.

"There is still a large amount of data to be processed, gentlemen." Sherlock gave a curt nod and spun on his heel, beckoning them to the scene taped off behind him with his pointer finger.

"Nephew?" Greg shook his head and spluttered.

John closed his eyes. All of that was too much to take in. Now he wanted desperately to take back the way he'd behaved earlier. He would have to make it up to him in some way. He just had no idea how.


	7. Chapter 7

**Vivisection**

It was as if they were seeing him for the first time. As somersaulting children were they, tumbling head over heels into the discovery that he had been like this all along. That the arrogant showoff they had known had been a man feigning confidence. There as he solved an attempted murder's plot, they were engaged in character study.

Sherlock's consultancy to New Scotland Yard had been a form of socialization and nothing more. He'd seen it as a passion project. A performing art to vent his need for human interaction in a way that his calculating mind could digest. For them, it was a charity of sorts. This was the true bread and butter of his life. Now they could see that.

For Sherlock, without meaning to, had taken his mask off in front of his friends at last. The British Secret Services didn't move around him as NSY's police officers had done. These people were his contemporaries. They had trained in the same schools and had a similar conceptualization of science. Sherlock was their commander because he was vivisecting, calculating, the heat of his spirit charring.

"Give them jobs that can scale to their intellect. Material handling for the Detective Inspector. Hand the physician this blood that has all the natural signs of having crossed with the deadly venom. He will need it for direct corroboration. His is an educated opinion on the intent of effect." Sherlock snapped gloved fingers. His underlings hopped to do as he said. They were afraid. They seemed to be somewhat afraid of Sherlock. He was snarky, shrewd, childish with NSY. It was an emotional catharsis working with the simple policemen. That was why he'd been so free and vulnerable even if he was hiding behind a mask. This man was made of metal. This man's mind ran like engines. He was the gears of war and his eyes were cold steel. He was stripped steel, the bearings of his whirring mind overpowering. It was loud like a steel press to hear him think.

He spun around them. They'd been mesmerized before. All those long days ago, Sherlock had been an artist. He handled his profession then with a sort of showmanship. This was the footwork of a swordsman.

"Now, if Doctor Watson's corroborations are at least nearly approximate, then we have his next move. See, the Professor, he deals in abstracts. In the sines and cosines of human psychology. He means for the decay of blood from snake venom to be the same as the inkblots used in mental exercises." Sherlock pressed test paper to the blood that had dripped from Nolety's scratches when he was overpowered and suspended. He pulled it up to reveal that the snake venom that had drenched the clothes had, indeed, developed an image much like a film negative.

"Doctor Watson, how long will effect of venom remain present in hemoglobin before it has fully decomposed it?" Sherlock's voice was harsh, snapping, ordering. It startled John like the first drill sergeant he'd ever encountered as a young Royal Army cadet had.

"Well, it happens rapidly. It depends on the snake, but it oxidates the venom and breaks it down." John nodded, biting his lip. Sherlock's eyes snapped from a paper to a paper.

"Naturally, he counted on this rapid decomposition. If you observe, the negatives in the blood, are being drawn into the floor's blood by an artistic splatter work of snake slaughter on Mr. Nolety's costume. He also incised him in precise diagonals so that his blood would flow to meet the floor splatter. I would then find his equation negative written in the intersection of blood and venom. He would draw me in to rapidly collect before the blood was eaten by the caustic material in full. He means to prompt me to haste." Sherlock's hand was shaking now, stress and nicotine withdraw leading his fingers to trace a cigarette in his front coat pocket. His underlings made a note that he composed himself, refraining from breaking the smoking sanction even in the face of death. It was only to set an example for them.

"Salvage these. The image is a code. A code of shapes and not numbers. I must connect them as psychological components, as puzzle slots, to save the next of his victims. This was a splatter painting and the next will be a Van Gogh of impressionism." Sherlock stood up. His eyes were fixed now on Anthea who had crept onto the scene some time ago. She nodded, taking rapid notes for him from a blackberry's notepad.

"Also note, that he is working up to a Magnus Opus. Every piece of his artistic collection will play a role in my death. He will use the splatter and incise compositions like this one. The same as with the other poison cases from before. See, he has crafted these would-be murders to be sadism. So, that he could savor in the patterns, the educated designs. Each of said patterns of relatively mutable incisions and venom applications will be applied to the same victim in the Final Act. A death of a thousand cuts but painted in poison to add color." Sherlock smiled, admiring for a moment the sheer cleverness of the plot. John felt like he'd be sick thinking that Sherlock would smile like that when he was the one slated to die in such an ugly way.

"He will make me his sculpture. It must be ever so elegant. So, he wishes to handle these acts delicately. Yet, he feels underappreciated. Which is why he drew Magnussen into the whole thing. His work, the frailty of his genius...He must hold him hostage. The televised extravagance of his Magnus Opus will be bargained for. My death in prime time in exchange for the media tycoon's life." Sherlock nodded and let a sigh.

"Sir?" Anthea shook her head. Clearly upset.

"I stand by my convictions. Do not let my brother persuade you. Your son, my nephew...His life. We are fighting for his life. The Professor has a score to schedule and end with my brother. Your son was at the center of it all if you recall that. A triage of spurned ambitions and lust's ever multifaceted intrigue." Sherlock pursed his lips. Anthea covered her mouth with her hand. He had found her out, exposed her raw and whole in front of Greg and John who she knew to be the general public. She nodded.

"Sherlock...Thomas...Thomas is not like you or his father. He's...He feels things...Compassion." Anthea nodded. Sherlock looked at John. John was taken aback by the emotive expression. What did she mean? He felt things too. Compassion, to an ungodly degree. Nevermind that it had manifested in a sorry attempt at hosted art and ended with bloody sacrifice.

"I agree. His empathy will be the death of me and the birthplace of a charged career in justice. This is why, even with the sins of my brother fresh in our memory, I am not going to fight this. Neither are you. We need a scapegoat. The Professor has always dreamed it would be me. Why deny him anymore?" Sherlock glared at Anthea.

"Write that down." He pointed to her phone. She bit her lip.

"We cannot allow you to die. The Director...He isn't well. Your death will drive him to madness." Anthea shook her head. Sherlock nodded.

"It's what he deserves for endangering his entire family for the sake of his flagrant ambitions." Sherlock turned on his heel and marched away.

John and Greg ran after him. He was talking into several devices at once commanding the crime scene to get under wraps.

"What...What in the Hell, Sherlock?" John puffed. Greg's face was scrunched, wan, pained. So much had been learned about him so quickly that it was almost too much. He had a sister? A nephew? His brother's political career was to blame for Moriarty? He was going to die at the hands of a brutal, creative psychopath? He was going to _allow_ himself to die? All for the greater good?

"You were there and saw all the evidence. You may contribute to the investigation but influencing it is outside of your authority. I will follow through. The Devil is due a soul and I shall deliver mine." Sherlock had at last stepped far enough away from evidence to slide the cigarette between his teeth. His hands were shaking as he lit it. The other two men felt a sudden sense of sickness. He was smoking too much. He was too tired, too thin.

"Enough." John snatched the cigarette from Sherlock's lips even as he lit it and stomped it underfoot.

"Explain." John bit his lip. Sherlock stared at him. Then, he looked at Greg who was crying into his hand.

"You've something to say. Why don't you spit it out? I'm rather pressed for time, gentlemen. Your ire is understandable but it may never receive the full recompense you are wanting." Sherlock rubbed his arms, cold now. He glared at Greg waiting for him to find his tongue.

Greg bowed his head and cried. It fell silent around them. Armored cars went sailing by. Sherlock leaned against the wall of the old abandoned dry cleaner's he was now standing behind. John stared at him. Stared at him in wonder at how leaden his eyes were. When suddenly it dawned on him.

"You...When was the last time you slept?" John bit his lip. Sherlock's eyes floated to his face.

"I'll sleep when I'm dead. Which means I'll sleep soon. Why don't you take him home? He is clearly becoming quite upset." Sherlock nodded to Greg.

"It's not like I'm a baby! Or a dog. Put me in the cozy pram and wheel me off when I get fussy..."Greg snapped rubbing his face dry with his palms. He glared at Sherlock indignant.

"I am upset. I've been upset. You know why? You died. You bloody well died. Then, you come back. With no explanation. Except that now it's like a whole life, a whole human life is spilling through a broken dam. I? I've known you for years without knowing you." Greg frowned as tears came anyway. Sherlock's hands were shaking wandering in vain for something to smoke. His eyes took on abysmal sorrow.

"Why? Why did you keep yourself so guarded throughout all the years? Why is it only coming clean here in your last days?" Greg bit his lip hard enough to draw a little blood. John toed the pavement cursing under his breath.

Sherlock shuddered and sagged against the wall. He locked Greg in his steely gaze as he spoke.

"I never let you know me because I am not someone you get to know." He was shaking now, rubbing his arms. Cold. So cold. And alone.

"Why is that?" John pressed closer feeling the wind go out of him. Sherlock leaned his head back hair rustling like silk against the bricks. He frowned. Then, he let out the saddest little sigh. It was a puff. A tiny pained breath. One that spoke echoes all the way into the heavens.

"I was a ghost from the beginning. A clown. I could entertain from the distance I placed between myself and the ordinary mundane lot of you. I didn't want you to know me. I wanted you to see me. I thought that your compassion could come to me from the distance, floating to my stage like roses to the songstress. It was all a magic trick. I didn't lie to you. I lathered makeup on my face. I pretended to be someone. Someone important. So you would see me and I would be known." Sherlock sank all the way to the ground.

They sank beside him, children telling secrets. Sherlock laid his face on his knees. He was shivering, rubbing his arms rapidly now.

"None of that matters now. I have lost the aura you came to care for. Awe and disgust. Fanfare, gentlemen. I could lead with it. Wear it for a time. Now, in the eleventh hour, the Game...The Work..."Sherlock shook his head.

"None of those things matter anymore." Sherlock's lips twisted.

"Why not?" John entreated softly. Sherlock drew a deep, shaky breath.

"When I lost your compassion, I lost the drive. Ambitions withered. You were my touchstone. Humanity. I miss that light..." Sherlock shook his head. His eyes opened. He looked at them, eyes stroked with watercolors.

"But now? Now I am going to die. With this chasm between us? I'm ready this time. Now I want to." Sherlock frowned a wistful frown. Then, to their amaze faint, delicate, forming like dew in grasslands, his eyes filled with tears.

"The forbidden fruit, the truth. ..._vivisection._ It's elegant, is it not? To die..."Sherlock closed his eyes and let the tears rain softly down his face.

"You would think I would...I would approach it on fire. That I would dance my dance and try my best to cheat it. I approach the end quietly. It is somehow...Relieving? I savor the soft tread. I greet Death as my dearest companion, my constant through the years. She understands me as I do her. We will go softly into the dying of the light. Softly, sleeping at last." Sherlock folded his arms and cried now himself. Softly, scarcely moving. Softly cried for the life that he regretted. The hollow echoes it had sounded.

"Oh my God, Sherlock!..." Greg shook his head and hiccuped crying rather openly now.

John crawled to Sherlock reached his hands out to him. Sherlock leaned against the wall, hitting his head hard on purpose and growled, enraged with himself.

"Gah! Go home! Live your lives. It was always mine to be alone in the end." Sherlock hit his head again, aggravated with the exposure.

"It doesn't have to be over now. It doesn't..."John wasn't sure he believed it but he had to try for his sake.


	8. Chapter 8

**Rescue Mission**

"Enough..."Sherlock got on his feet, fanning his arms asking for a bit of space without words. He ran his sleeve over his face.

"Please...Please don't make it harder than it need be. No more false hope. To catch a serpent, a bird must break its wing. I am ready. It is done." One of Sherlock's devices buzzed. He gasped, growled, scarcely noticing how close John was to screaming, face turning ashen. He answered the device with a little snarl.

"Damn you, Musgraves! I ordered that report 6 hours ago!" Sherlock hissed into the phone. He turned around to speak in a heated, condescending tone to whoever was on the phone.

He started to walk away from the others. They followed him. He hung up the phone and turned to them _face all shades of the frightened dying world he'd been trying to save.

"I'd...I'd ask you to stay with me. I'd like for you to stay, you know? Always have valued your opinions during my investigations. I have to ask you to go home for now. I must go to an area that is strictly classified even to higher officers of the Secret Services. You would get into greater kinds of trouble than I could get you out of if you are to follow me." Sherlock nodded.

Greg gasped. Then, he embraced him. Sherlock allowed it even though he'd gone board-stiff.

"I'm...I'm not ready to give you up for dead." Greg leaned back, eyes popping wide open. Sherlock swallowed and nodded.

Then it was John's turn to say goodbye. His eyes trained to the ground.

"John...Please. I haven't meant to be flagrant. It is merely the facts." Sherlock bit his lip. John nodded, slowly acknowledging the truth. They had forgiven him almost too late.

"I...I am a soldier, Sherlock. Of the British royal services. Even if I am not enlisted anymore." John lifted his face. There was a settled resolve in his jaw. One that clearly frightened Sherlock whose eyes were wide now.

"Which means that if I can...Then I will. I will save you from this. And I may be only ordinary, but...To catch a spider, sometimes you need houseflies." With that, John hugged Sherlock again. Sherlock let out a little chortled laugh and shook his head.

As they stepped back from one another, Sherlock nodded. Then, he looked over his shoulder.

"I have...I have to go." He was faintly panting. They realized then that where he was going was a scary place. That he had a rendezvous with Death and they could not interfere in it.

"If this...If this is the last time that I see either of you...I am sorry_again. If I had only been truthful, maybe..." Sherlock hissed, in tears again. It was so strange to see him with his heart exposed. It wasn't supposed to exist.

"Think better of me." He nodded, folding his hands as if in prayer. Then, he spun on his heel and was gone. Gone through the streets as smoke dissipates. They had no prayer of tracing him.

"What do we do now?" Greg was shaking.

"We save him. Not sure how we're gonna do that, but...We need...We need Molly and Mary and Mrs. Hudson. We all need to deliberate this together. A team of eyes and ears." John turned on his heel.

"Wait, you want to involve the ladies?" Greg's eyes went wide.

"You saw the camera go up in Mary's flat. They will be involved whether I want them to be or not. So, yes, best to give them jobs and assemble some form of rescue effort." John wiped his mouth. He was a soldier. He would always be a soldier. Now, he was going to war again.


	9. Chapter 9

**MIA**

The next day, John texted Sherlock 7 times in growing terror before he realized that he was texting the number he'd had before he "died".

_Where are you, damn it?!_

John's eyes opened at last when he saw the text notification "Sending Error, this number has been disconnected, SMS failure…"

This meant that John had never gotten his number from him. He also had no idea where he was, or where he lived. Or even who he was and how he lived now. Sherlock was technically a stranger now. A stranger slated to die by the hands of the master of homicide.

"Damn!" John flung his mobile on the floor of Mary's flat. She was sitting in a bean bag chair a few meters away from him, head in her hands. Mrs. Hudson was making tea, biscuits, and scones.

Molly was pacing, chewing her nails.

"You-You were certain? Certain...that he...That he was...You know, not being as he often is...It wasn't drama..." Molly was shaking.

"No, he was...He was serious. He was...In tears." Greg's voice cut through the room, hoarse. Molly fell to her knees, mouth hanging open.

Mrs. Hudson was burning the scones. She gasped.

"How...John? How did this happen?" She pulled out a fire extinguisher, squealing in dismay as the scones refused to be extinguished.

"Better question is how did we miss it?" Greg sat down in Mary's armchair.

"Best question, how do we help him?" Mary looked up slowly. John met her eyes. He gave a shaky breath.

"You're not gonna like it." John chewed his lip. Mary nodded.

"You're going after him, yourself. You only called us in to set up like a watch of our own." Mary bit her thumbnail.

"If we tempt the Devil, try anything to sabotage his murder fantasy, one of two things will happen. Either he will come for us or he will kill him in front of us. To assert his power. We must try to prevent both of these things from happening. We could stay out of the way of harm, but they will likely play with us anyway. I'd just rather meet them half the way. So, I am going to go to Sherlock where he is and we are going to go underground. Off map for a while. I suggest that you lot do this as well. Call your bosses and friends. We will feign absence and gradually drop off the radar so that we may watch each other's six from the shadows." John stood up. He saw that Molly was not paying attention. She was staring at the telly in horror.

"Last night, an attack at a Thames regulations office has rocked the riverside community. A fireball tore through six commercial watercraft. It injured 20 people. No one is yet entirely certain if the cause of the attack is linked to the reopened investigation into criminal enterprising Mafia-man James Moriarty. We do know that the detective consulted on the Moriarty case in the past, who was acquitted for false charges of fraudulent office when MI5 Director Mycroft Holmes publicly inducted him three months ago, was present at the scene. Sherlock Holmes, age 33, is the senior officer set over the reemerging Moriarty investigations. This footage emerged this morning after MI5 publically declared Holmes Missing In Action. From the scene_" The reporter's face was drawn eyes wide. Footage of blazing boats appeared in a screen box near her face. Then, the camera switched to last night near the river.

_"What...What in the Hell? You are not authorized to be here, near this..." Sherlock's eyes popped wide on camera as if he knew to keep his words guarded no matter what. He had the cameraman at gunpoint. His eyes darted between people off camera making rapid deductions about this without voicing them. He was standing halfway up the steps of said regulation dock, hair blowing in the wind from the river. _

_"If this makes it to the press, you fools, we are all dead men." Sherlock shook his head, gravely annoyed. Just then a siren wailed in the background. Sherlock turned to look. His eyes went wide. _

_"Oh my God!" Someone shrieked off camera. A fire lit up bright in the background. Sherlock looked up at it, jaw-dropping. _

_"My God! Order the evacuation. Get me eyes on Thomas Livery. The intern, Musgraves, damn you!" Sherlock spoke into a walkie talkie. People started shouting and running and tearing around him. The pier he was standing near began to give way. _

_"Turn that bloody thing off!" Sherlock pistol-whipped the camera out of the hands of whomever the propagandist at the other end of it had been. The screen went fuzzy then it went dark._

John slapped pillows off the sofa, letting out an enraged hiccup. Mary hugged Molly who had screamed when the video went off. Mrs. Hudson sat down fanning herself.

"John?" Greg watched as John stormed to his gun that sat on Mary's tea table. He strapped it on his belt. He turned to look at the myriad pairs of terrified eyes.

"We don't have time to form a more solid plan. I'm going to sweep the area where this happened. Each of you, keep an eye on this surveillance camera. It could be compromised, but he may send updates to it. If he's alive, I'm thinking it will come in code, or through someone else. I am going to go speak to some of his old contacts in the homeless network to set up surveillance of our frequent haunts_if I can't find him and let him lead on this. Greg, talk to your people at the Yard. This is an all-hands-on-deck issue." John nodded curtly, barely refraining from saluting.

He wheeled to the door before anyone could ask him to stay. Especially Mary. He could not face her eyes again.

_You had better be alive or I will kill you! _John was in tears again as he marched outside. He could imagine Sherlock captured, burning, or so many other things. Why, oh, why had he been so stupidly cruel to him before?!


	10. Chapter 10

**Waking up~**

_So, this is how it ends. It's not sharp or harsh or jarring. I expected it would be. The data alluded to pain but this...It's...Peaceful? _

The river silt grated at his neck like wraith's fingers scratching clawing. He felt ashes and water go up his nose but since he wasn't breathing yet he didn't choke on them.

Sherlock's eyes misted over watercolors. He saw the red and the orange. Purple, the purple of burning chemicals and his artery's blood. He groaned laying in a puddle of himself. Evidently he had been blasted through a barricade. Squeezed through metal and flames during the firefight.

His head was spinning. His thoughts were floating away. Vaguely, he recalled an American fairytale where a little girl was caught up in a tornado and taken to a mythic land. He forgot that this was Dorothy on the way to Oz. He thought the fable was his life. Over now.

_What about John? _

Silence….Sherlock laughed. Breathless laugh.

_What about him? _It didn't register yet that he was talking to himself.

Still, he saw himself standing at his feet. He looked much the same as he had only a few years ago when he had been 28. That was the year that he met John. His life changed that year.

"You...You can't be intent upon leaving him." Sherlock knelt beside his dying body. Dying Sherlock rasped a laugh.

_He'll be fine without me, surely. _

"Will he? He was a proper wreckage before." Sherlock tapped his dying body's smoldering shoes. His brows knit together.

"This won't do, Sherlock. You must solve your way to waking up. Do it for John."

_Dying is better. If I should die then the Professor's murder fantasy is at last satiated. _

"Not like this. Not if you die right now. You can't take the easy way out. Death by shoddy barricade pieces isn't exactly the coup de gras of murder, is it?" Sherlock clucked his tongue.

_You're right. _Dying Sherlock stretched his weak hands trying to force himself to sit.

"Ah, look. Hello, John. Always on the scene when you are most needed." Sherlock looked up to see John running toward his dying body. His eyes were wide and filled with the blazes of the wreckage.

"Sherlock...My God!" John covered his mouth as he hit his knees. Dying Sherlock gasped eyes dancing over John.

"Not like this. Not. Must be more creative." Both Sherlocks became one man again and sat up in John's arms. Blood was dripping in his eyes. He seized John by the collar.

"Mustn't die until John is safe. It's always John Watson...It's you. You keep me right...And I...If I die at his hands and not because of some silly barricade I flew threw...I can keep you...And Thomas...And all the lot of them...I can keep you safe." Sherlock's hands reached out shaking cupping John's chin and caressing his face. John's lips were parted in a look of extreme amazement. He shook his head.

"What...are you on about? Hush...Let's have a look." John placed his fingertip to Sherlock's trembling lips. He started emergency first aid, staunching the bleeding coming from Sherlock's head, side, and busted knee cap. He'd hit that barricade hard but not hard enough to break bones. It had been too flimsy for that in the end.

"John it's why I decided that death...That I could do it. I knew if I didn't...Agree to play this Game that he...He would...Oh, he'll do awful things to you. You and Mary. Beautiful, gentle Mary with the dove's eyes…"Sherlock hissed in pain and gargled on blood and river water he'd accidentally sucked up. John hit his back making him cough it on the riverbank. He was cleaning the wounds. Pouring clotting powder on the blood and administering temporary plasters.

"Hush...Sherlock, please. Shh…" John laid his hand over Sherlock's mouth. Sherlock's eyes danced across his face. John leaned up and shook his head.

"Be quiet for just a minute, alright? I've got you, yeah? Shh…" John shook his head and laced his fingers in Sherlock's filthy, bloody hair. He leaned into him and kissed him between the eyes.

"Are you...You..._g-good?" Sherlock's shaky hands traced their way through John's hair.

"You...Oh, God, Sherlock. You flew straight through a bloody police barricade. Bashed to bits. Come on. Can you stand?" John tried to ease Sherlock to his feet. Sherlock did stand. For all of 3 seconds. Then, with a whimper, his legs began to cave.

"No, alright. Alright. Here. Hop up. Pig-a-back like the schoolyard, then? Up you go." John lifted Sherlock up under his legs onto his shoulders.

"You're about as light as a schoolchild too...God help us." John patted Sherlock's leg.

"I...I...Thought I was dreaming when you…" Sherlock's head listed on John's shoulders.

"No, it's me. I'm here. Now, for the love of God, shut up. Let's get you somewhere safe so I can clean you up properly…"John chuckled darkly at the thought.

He was telling him a story next. Something to distract him. It began "Mary and I went shopping yesterday…" John knew Sherlock well enough to know that he would be bored nearly to tears by this. That was precisely why he did it. Sherlock would calm down considerably now. If he were bored, he would retreat into his own mind to escape the world around him. After 5 minutes of listening to the _Tesco Trials Adventure _Sherlock was dozing off with quantum computing theories dancing in the shadows of his head.

"Are you asleep, mm? Don't go all the way to sleep. Got to check your head…"John patted Sherlock's leg again.

"Mm…"Sherlock nodded, but he wasn't listening anymore. John breathed a shaky sigh of relief and led him away from the blast zone.


	11. Chapter 11

**Resting in peace**

"Hey…"

The voice was itself medicine. Sherlock woke up freezing, sputtering, under water. The water itself wasn't cold. He was though. Why was he so cold?

"Shh, hey, you're alright. I've got you, mm? Sherlock...I've got you."

He knew whose voice that was.

That voice was completely beyond mistake.

Sherlock gasped, hand reaching out for a sign of him.

"J-John?" He was shivering. Why was he shivering?

"Hey, alright…" John's voice was broken like something bad had happened. Sherlock's whole upper body shook. Now he realized what was going on. He was bowed over a sink. A public toilet's sink. John was washing his hair of blood and grime. He was cold because he was undressed from the waist up.

John pulled Sherlock out of the lukewarm water. Now he could see his own face in the mirror and was shocked, jarred even, by how wasted he looked. His eyes were bloodshot, his face bone-thin along with the rest of him. Water dripped over his bruised face. He cringed even as John reached to towel his hair a bit.

John proceeded to wash and stitch the wounds on his back and side. He'd already stitched his head wound. Sherlock gripped the sink. He was in pain but it was the kind of pain that was so severe one may barely react to it. He bowed his head and endured it all in harrowing silence. John didn't like what this implied.

At length, John eased Sherlock down from the sink and the mirror and slipped a shirt over his shoulders. It was one of his own shirts. It was too big for him now. John had been wearing it over his shirts as a sort of extra layer to keep him close since he had died. Even when he was angry with him, he'd done it unconsciously.

John led Sherlock deeper into the place they were in. They'd broken into an office complex that was under construction. There was a small corner that had cubicles. John had filled one of them up with pillows and a blanket. He laid Sherlock down there. Then, he laid down next to him and pulled the scraggly blanket up around him.

"Well, you're not concussed, thank God." John took Sherlock's hand. Sherlock's eyes went wide a bit confused by what they were doing.

John gasped, annoyed.

"Yeah, no, we're going to rest a moment. You bled a good 40% of your body's blood volume, did you know that? You've not eaten or slept in God knows when. It'll be alright. You can go back to the business of being murdered to save us all tomorrow." John wrapped his arm around Sherlock and eased his head to his shoulder. His hair was still wet and dripped on John's fingers but the young doctor didn't seem to mind at all.

"How did you find me, John?" Sherlock was surprised by how scared and weak his own voice sounded in his ears.

"I knew you very well once. Plus…you're not gonna be happy about this, but the footage from the river was leaked." John winced. Sherlock let out a soft _damn _and crumpled against John's arm. John nodded and closed his eyes. It was a bit jarring how easily Sherlock was allowing himself to be held these last so many days. He was mortified by his impending torment and death. He'd be the last person to admit to that, but he was.

"I...I love you as well...I mean, that's what people say, isn't it? Is it the correct reply? Or am I only meant to infer it?" Sherlock stammered. This was the belayed version of the conversation they'd had when they had finally reconciled. Sherlock didn't appear to know how long ago that was. It was closing in on 36 hours now. He'd been missing for a little over one day.

"With me, say what you mean always...I'd rather you just be honest." John kissed his head again, stomach leaping to his throat at the thought that he'd nearly died. May yet still die. A horrific, freak death…

"Well...I love you, John. Like...um...like family." Sherlock shrugged a little. He knew that he was talking out of his head, but he also didn't have enough of said brain matter left present to feign a snarking cover for it.

"And I love you...Yes, like family. Now, hush and get some rest…"John smoothed his wet hair away from his face.

"Can't...Thomas...Janine...Anthea...The hit list, the people key to the Professor's plan to break Mycroft for making him...I can't….Have to cut him off from those key interest persons...I...Must get back to...I have to...It needs to be televised...My death." Sherlock was trying to solve it aloud, but it had been precisely 4 solid days since his body had been allowed to rest naturally. He'd been unconscious for an hour when he'd shot through the barricade and then he lay in a daze for almost a day after that. Before that, his body had only relaxed when John had embraced him after their last argument. He was dozing off without his own consent now.

"We can worry about that later...I will keep watch on everything important and vulnerable. Get some sleep, Sherlock. You'll work better when you do." John nodded, smiling as he felt Sherlock pass into dreams there in his arms. He held him listening to him breathe and watched the door. On every breath, he praised the heavens that he was still alive.


	12. Chapter 12

**Scream, whisper~**

**_A/N. Sorry about this. Something a bit bizarre happened when posting this story. The chapters either never published right, or one of them deleted somewhere around chapter 6. If you are really confused at this point, go back to the new chapter 6 and all the other ones will make a lot more sense. _**

Sherlock woke up screaming. His arms thrashed. He scrambled away with aching, throbbing legs. A hand fiercely grabbed him by the nape of his collar. The other hand clapped over his mouth.

John's eyes were wide. He shushed Sherlock. Sherlock took a moment to process his friend bathed in the almond milk light. The moon glared into this abandoned construction site. Someone was pacing it. Just out of sight.

"Sherlock?" The voice of the Devil. John was panting now. His eyes danced in the moonlight like tiny meteors. They crashed to earth every time he looked in the way that voice was speaking.

"Sherlock...I know you are here…I only came to talk this time, darling…" The voice sent shivers. It splintered through Sherlock's aching body. His eyes rolled closed. John watched his face. He understood what this meant. Who this was…

"I know that he's here with you, Sherlock. That he's interfering in our plans for each other."The Professor grated a knife against the window glass. The moon bled through the crack he'd made. He stood in silence, brooding. John felt Sherlock's heart in his mouth that quivered beneath his hand even if his eyes looked calm. He took his hand off his mouth and stared at him in horror. They were talking with their eyes now as only they could.

_Should we make a break for it?_

John looked toward the exit door past the toilets. Sherlock's eyes looked down.

_He's got us in his web now. We wait this out. _

John nodded and helped him ease up to his haunches.

"I can hear your thoughts…" The Professor cooed cooly into the room as if he was talking to the love of his life. John's shoulders arched. Sherlock was looking at him in pity. He knew that this would bring John all the way to his knees. To come face to face with the one who had plotted his grave demise.

"I can feel the vibration...The _id _of you. The burning, cold iron…"Professor Moriarty giggled like a schoolgirl. His voice was dark, rolling, brooding. It was not an Irish accent like his son had. It was a deep, throaty, cracking Yorkshire accent. One that made the window panes shake, the moon shiver as she bled under his domestic violence. He was cold and pale and brooding. Married to the darkness, to the night.

Sherlock eased himself up, ready to face him if it needed to happen.

"You...How is it that you...Are born to some pathetic family like that of Julien Holmes? You should…You and your sister and even your brother_that treacherous!...My greatest pupils...My children. Mine…" The Professor tilted his head. He stabbed the glass. A vicious cracking sound. The walls shook. They whispered, shuttered. The bones of the structure screamed. Oh, to be away from him.

"You didn't even know me...I sent my insolent bastard. Son of an Irish intern...I sent him to test you...You killed my sparrow, Sherlock. You were better than him. Well done." The Professor applauded softly in the echoing silence of the knife driven into the glass.

The Professor was shaking now. Enraged, sobbing into his hands for a fretful moment. Then he lifted his head, face shining with a massive smile. The moon bled into the cracks of it.

"The Holmes children? No...My children. Mine. You love me too, don't you, Sherlock? You think of me as family...That's why you crushed my burden, my bastard...Splattering brains…A painting for me, Sherlock...you lovely child…"The Professor paused a step or two away from where John and Sherlock were still behind the cubicle desk crouched near the makeshift bed they'd made.

"Must I burn the world down for you? When...When, dear? When shall we stop hiding and at last seek each other? The cold grasp of your dead hands...How I long to hold them. To make you perfect...I will make you beautiful, perfect. My precious...fragile...child…"

"I have done away with them. The river? But one little pyre, Sherlock. A birthday candle, Sherlock, sweetheart. You know that there will be no more hiding places. No more facilities for the government to keep you from me. For Mycroft _Bleeding Holmes _to keep you from me_..._That treacherous_" The Professor purred a soft growling purring sound even as he laughed.

"Sherlock, we have hidden enough. Scream for me, and I whisper. Come tenderly...Come tenderly to me, child...I will make you perfect. Fragile, genius...My prodigy...My child prodigy...The only one who dared challenge my methods...I will make you perfect…"

The Professor went shaking to the exit door, rubbing his arms, crying.

"I have him now...I have him. Magnussen...I took him from the facilities. I took him...But not to hurt him. I have him, my piece, he and Janine...I have them to create the stage. To make you elegant. To make you famous when the time comes…" The Professor shivered and turned to the room.

"I...I have left Thomas alone. Because you love him. Because you, clever, clever boy...Sent him to your sister. You know me...You know that I could never touch a single hair of her precious…"The Professor's hands quaked as he rolled them into fists at his mouth.

"I will leave them alone, Sherlock. All of them. John, your darling...The love of your life...Your John. And sweet Mary...with the dove's eyes...I will leave them alone. Sherlock? Sherlock, love? I will leave them all alone. You only have to solve the breadcrumb trail I've left this time...This last one...This last one now that no one may interfere in...You only have to solve your way...Home. To me, love...To the stage where I can make you...perfect...Make you dance…" The Professor turned away sobbing.

"Come home, Sherlock...Home...To waiting Death." With that he was gone.

The room grew silent. It echoed and creaked as wind blew through the crack in the glass.

John let out a gasp when he was gone at last. Sherlock eased himself to standing.

"You know what I have to do." He smoothed his shirt and tested his busted leg gingerly to see if it could hold wait long. Sherlock took three steps after Moriarty before John had taken him by the shoulders, slammed him into the wall.

"You won't." John gasped, forcing his palms hard against Sherlock's chest to keep him in place.

"I...I have no choice." Sherlock nodded. John shook his head.

"No…"

"Your life, John."

"Shut up."

"I have to play his Game...So many lives."

"You aren't going to do it, dammit! You're not...You're…"John was shivering.

Sherlock cupped his neck in his palm and let him lean against his chest.

"John, I have to. If I didn't before, now I do. You know that I do…"Sherlock's voice was hollow and sad. A birdsong at the bottom of a bottle.

"You're not dying for me, damn you. Not again." John looked up.

"John…"Sherlock's voice was a whisper. He was begging...He was actually begging to be allowed to die.

John shook his head.

"No. Alright, just...no. Come on. We're getting out of here."

"And going where?"

"Underground…"

"John, what if he already has our women? Or my nephew? He's not above lying…"Sherlock shook his head.

"No...Stop it. Stop. No. Don't let him do this to you. You're supposed to be the puzzle master. He is playing you like a fiddle. Stop it. Stop. Take my hand. Take it." John held out his hand. Sherlock stared at him taking it gently.

"Come with me now. We have to get out of here. I don't know where we're going but...we have to get out of _here…" _With that, John led Sherlock out another exit and to the street.


	13. Chapter 13

**What Mycroft had done**

John and Sherlock ran blindly through the streets. To the skatepark that the street kids made under a graffiti riddled bridge. They were panting, bowed over their knees.

"I know you said to stop tracking you. So, I bugged John instead." Mary spoke from under the eaves and shadow. Sherlock hissed in a surprised breath and stood all the way up laughing.

John rushed to his smiling fiancee and kissed her. He turned around to see Molly hug Sherlock. Everyone paused watching her exchange.

"I...I have been furious with you before...And you have deserved it for many reasons. But...This last episode...I-I-Think...Well, I mean, I know...I was...You were dying and…I'm sorry." Molly bit her lip having embarrassed herself just a bit. Sherlock smiled and nodded. Then, he looked at Greg as he came out from under the eaves. Mrs. Hudson leaned on his arm.

"Oh, Sherlock!" She gasped, reaching a hand out to him. He went to her and hugged her as well. She was babbling because he had nearly died and because they had told her everything.

"If all of you are here, then something is wrong…"Sherlock eased up and took Mrs. Hudson's face in hand. She sniffled and nodded.

"They-um...They killed the camera. The feed you made was deleted the same time they raided the prison and-and took Magnussen. It was on the telly. " Molly shrugged.

Sherlock turned to her, then to Mary. His face was already empathetic. She gasped in agitation.

"Yes, and they torched my bloody flat! But, that's not your fault, dear. The only one to blame is that demon that's caused all this." Mary folded her arms. Sherlock smiled at her. Then, his face crumpled.

"Do you...Do you lot trust me?" His face was ashen, expecting them to say "no". He needed their trust to keep them alive.

"I don't know if my vote counts since I don't have the history, but I for one recognize you're probably the best chance I've got at staying alive." Mary threw her hand up. Sherlock pointed to her and nodded, smiling.

"I've always trusted you. Why the hell do you think I put up with you for so many years before John showed up to tame you?" Greg rolled his eyes.

"I think...Well, I mean you are the best at what you do, Sherlock. It doesn't matter that I was angry before_I'm not now." Mrs. Hudson smiled and nodded frantically.

"You were...you've always been. Well, it sounds silly. You were like a light in a dark, dark place...Before. So now…"Molly was getting upset. She was near tears. Sherlock understood that this was an open confession of secret love among other things. His eyes fluttered sadly, at last, grasping it. Then, he smiled at her a wistful smile for the affection he'd spurned.

John watched this exchange with wonder. What could have been? What could have been had he remained here? Molly was engaged to Tom. John to Mary. Greg had been talking to a woman named Celeste...It seemed that everybody had somebody. In their gatherings, they had always left the one out who had been the glue between them. Now he was about to slip away from them forever.

"I-Yes, Sherlock." Molly nodded.

Sherlock broke gaze with her. He looked at John_his face almost sick. What would he say?

"Do I trust the man who lied to me and went away to Hell to save my life? Yes...Yes, I do. You've...Given me so much. Sacrificed so much. Yet I...I suppose it's too late to say this, but...You can't...You can't go yet, Sherlock." John was not embarrassed to confess this which surprised them all. He had been so guarded with his emotions about Sherlock before, even while he was "dead". One last catalyzing horror was enough to lay the ground open between them. The impact they had on each other was asteroids falling to earth. Falling as he had done.

"If you...Trust me. Then, you will understand that. If the moment comes, if there is no choice." Sherlock stood up tall.

"There may not be one. I want you to understand what I must do. I have calculated every variable. I have run every algorithm. If this is the only way, the gallows set...Then, you must let me go to them. I don't want tears. I don't want you to argue. I...I know a place where you will all be safe...I will take you there. Until whatever pain must come is over." Sherlock nodded.

"Why is there no version of this where you come out alive?" Mary's hands shook in front of her. Sherlock looked at her for strength. The others were shedding tears they didn't know they'd been holding back. All of it was water under that bridge.

"Because my brother...Early in his career. He created Moriarty. Both of them. The younger and the elder. I believe the Irish intern that was Jim's mother was actually enrolled in the Secret Services' school once. The school my father was the headmaster over. The Professor taught there before my father realized his profile of extreme psychosis. My father had the Professor temporarily sacked along with said intern when it was discovered they were sleeping together on-premises. I was to learn this only much later in life." Sherlock favored his busted knee, wincing in pain. They exchanged glances worried about his physical capacity to keep this pace up.

"When Mycroft achieved early directorate status of both offices... He...He insisted on financing and furnishing the young MI5 and MI6 agency training academies with his own erudite choices for instructors. He rehired Professor Moriarty, though no one knows yet what his name was at the time because he taught under a false identity and guise at that time.

I attended this school. It was wear I created my career. It was also the-...um….The reason for my previous addiction. My addiction was groomed at his hands, in his lab, although I only recently...Recently solved this." Sherlock rubbed his neck. They grew quiet realizing they were treading on fearful ground.

"It was...Where I'm going to take you now...It will make much more sense then. My sister...Eurus. She was a genius prodigy. One that Mycroft in his arrogance exposed to the wrong influence….To-To _his _influence and drove her to madness. Yet, with the infatuation, the Professor has for my sister...And she for him. He would never go there with her. Not without her consent at any rate. He would also never harm her. He would never harm the lot of you then if you were to be with her. He believes that she is sacred. That I...that I am like her but inferior and...Um, well…"Sherlock was actually embarrassed.

"It's alright. You might as well tell us the truth." John stepped a little closer. Sherlock laughed.

"By now, I'm sure you all have realized...um...how I am about…Well, with...With women….and anyone...if you take my meaning, er..."Sherlock shook his head smiling apologetically at Molly who looked away a bit bashfully. He cleared his throat.

"The reason that Moriarty called me the Virgin wasn't just because that is a basic fact known about me...It was...It was also because I was one of the students that Professor Moriarty would not…Um...Well, you know. Have his way with." Sherlock looked up at John, kept his eyes fixed on John.

"He wanted to keep me special and...I don't know. Pure? Pure so that I could be his...His sacrifice. To the gods he worships. Once I am sacrificed then he and my sister...He believes that they will, at last, have their due...That they will have broken the curse that Mycroft put on them when their illicit affair and murder spree was prosecuted out of the university…" Sherlock gritted his teeth.

"He...He seems to believe that once all this business is done he can drive Mycroft to insanity. Kill the child he had with Anthea hypocritically during these early days of his career even when he had reprimanded and destroyed his sister and the Professor for their affair. The Professor believes he can force Mycroft to resign just as he was forced to resign. He thinks that at last the ugliness of my Manifesto murder will drive him to suicide…" Sherlock frowned, evidently believing Mycroft wouldn't care so much if he died, no matter how ugly it would be.

"Then he will have Eurus and they together can take over the directorate. That they will be pulling silent Mafioso strings in the British government...It will turn England_the entire United Kingdom_into a repeat of the Medici era in Italy and worse. It has been his grand scheme for years. That is why he played the dramatic archetypal game with his son and me. He was grooming me to at last figure out what he wanted from me. What he wanted, what he has always wanted, is my soul." Sherlock's voice.

"And I...God help me, I am ready to give up my ghost to him if it will end the madness. The Game, it's designed to break my mind. To end me in a multiple choice of ways. It is a Manifesto and I…" Sherlock covered his mouth, eyes gone wide. They watched him amazed. He was falling apart before their eyes. He was falling apart so gently. Snowfall in some forgotten night of the far forsaken North.

"God help me, I'm his clown. I have always been his clown." Sherlock shuddered and looked at them all.

They stared at him, unsure what to say. Sherlock nodded surprised by the compassion for him he found now on their faces.

"Follow me, from a distance. Make it seem as if you are going to a restaurant or on one of your outings. Make it appear as normal as it can. I will lead you to my sister's doorstep, where her steps take hold on Hell…"Sherlock turned on his heel marching toward death and God knew what. They watched him go wondering at his life...At the legend of the man whom they had never gotten close enough to fully comprehend.

"Alright...Let's go on then." John nodded.

"You...You'll save him. You have to save him." Mary grabbed John's hand voicing what everyone was thinking.

John smiled.

"If it kills me, yes. Let's go."


End file.
